


your heart doesn't beat (let me teach it to)

by Fox_the_Hermit



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Ghosts, M/M, Necromancy, Pre-Slash, Resurrection, and they really wanna bone, except they're already very gay and in love, they just can't bone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22090813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_the_Hermit/pseuds/Fox_the_Hermit
Summary: Kisuke understands that his time to go has come. It's time to accept that he can't hang around forever.His dear friend Ichigo has agreed to help him with finding what is needed to help him move onwards, whatever that really means.(Excepthe’snot ready to let go.)UraIchi PC4 #52 - A Small Clearing in the Woods, Full of Bones
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Kurotsuchi Mayuri, Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke, Kurotsuchi Mayuri/Urahara Kisuke, Urahara Kisuke/Kurotsuchi Mayuri/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 3
Kudos: 69
Collections: UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4





	your heart doesn't beat (let me teach it to)

“So, do you think-”

“This is the place,” Kisuke murmurs, interrupting Ichigo.

He stares at the pit in the middle of the clearing. He can’t see his bones, not in the deep pile of gleaming off-white long since picked clean of flesh, but he can feel it. They’re _here_.

A simple ceremony, and- he’ll be able to pass on. Like he’s been wanting to, for so long, to find _rest_.

He glances at Ichigo, looking for reassurance. Or something.

These past months, after everything-

It is natural order for souls to pass onwards, to whatever is, or isn’t, _beyond_. Funny, not even ghosts and witches and monsters turned out to know the answer to that. Not even the supernatural beings know what happens _after_.

It may be what nature demands, what the world mandates-

He doesn’t want to _leave_ , not any more. It feels like he has _unfinished_ _business_ again, even with Yhwach and his plan to kill all non-humans foiled, Yoruichi, Tessai, and the kids all safe and sound.

It’s not… the family he has built. Tessai and Yoru and Jinta and Ururu. He has long since accepted that one day they would part.

It’s not Mayuri, because they have had a decade of friendship with no options for anything different due to the circumstances, and a decade has to be enough to appreciate a friend that one loves. It has to be. It has to be enough for him, because it’s already been ten years, more than he could have ever hoped for.

Anyway, he can’t exactly call meetings ‘dates’ when one of the parties can’t really enjoy the food or get or give presents or anything. So, Mayuri is merely a friend, and one that Kisuke should be able to leave.

But he can’t pretend, even to _himself_ , that he’s ready to leave Ichigo. They met barely two years ago, there’s not been- enough shared, for him to be ready. That’s all.

“Thank you so much, Ichigo-san. This is… thank you. I look forward to my rest.” Kisuke hopes he sounds convincing.

Mayuri and Ichigo look back at him, with strange expressions on their face.

Kisuke hopes he can remember their faces in the afterlife, if there is one. He’ll wait for as long as he has to until he sees them again.

“Excellent, you’re having emotions, and all that sentimental ridiculousness. Now, can we hurry up? We are wasting daylight if we want this done today.” Mayuri strides forwards, hopping right into the pit of bones, and diving in, pulling out seemingly-random bones from the pile. But as he _is_ an accomplished necromancer- well, Kisuke assumes there’s more to it than he can see. As an accomplished animal resurrectionist to boot, he must know how to identify bones by species, at least.

“We could just purify the whole pile, Kurotsuchi-san,” Kisuke says cautiously.

Mayuri pauses, hip-deep in bones, and turns to stare at him in disbelief. Kisuke is struck, all of a sudden, at how intense his eyes can be, burning gold like a fire.

“...Unless I have misunderstood- Why _exactly_ do you think I am here, Urahara-san?”

Well… perhaps thinking that Ichigo dragged a necromancer into the woods just to bone him was a tad presumptuous.

But, surely-

“See, I was _certain_ that I was brought along because the lovestruck moron next to you wants you to be brought back to life. A decision that I now finally understand. Like attracts like, and you must have even fewer brain cells than he does.”

 _What_.

It can’t be... _that_. It can’t mean what it feels like that means.

Except Ichigo is grinning at him in that adorable, sort of embarrassed but utterly shameless way that makes Kisuke _feel things_. Fluttery butterfly things in his stomach. The ones that make him blush and look away and speak in a strangled voice.

“When the soul is still in our world, bringing someone back is as easy as making a proper vessel for their spirit to reside in; making a _living body_ is quite easy - the soul is the thing that prevents most resurrections.”

Kisuke still can’t quite think past the fact that apparently, Ichigo is a _lovestruck moron_ for _him_. Enough to… make a deal with someone as illegal as a _practicing_ _human resurrectionist_?

Human resurrection is _so_ illegal, he hadn’t known Mayuri could _actually_ _do it_ rather than just study the (legal) theory of it, and they’ve been acquaintances for a _decade_.

How did Ichigo even find out? How did he even _convince_ Mayuri that bringing Kisuke back is worth the risk of being hunted and executed?

It takes surprisingly little time for Mayuri to collect the two hundred and six or so bones from the pile. Admittedly, at the depth he’s digging at, it may be that they simply were not disturbed by the weather - and no animal other than an insect would dare even step somewhere steeped so heavily in corrosive magic.

Kisuke half-expects Mayuri to lay the bones out properly- but he just dumps them in a pile, before retrieving a bunch of sealed bags and containers, and opening them.

Most of them have… something inside, except for the biggest one, with a magical barrier on top.

A gas?

“Kurosaki-san, I suggest you step back as far as you can. The spell will be pulling about forty-three kilos of oxygen out of the air around us, and it will no doubt be… unpleasant.”

“Right, sure.”

Ichigo throws Kisuke a warm, reassuring smile, and circles the clearing until he is on the other side, retreating to the very edge of the tree-line. Interested in watching the process, obviously.

"I would have thought you would need to... arrange the ingredients, or lay them out, or mix them in a bowl, or some such,” Kisuke says, tone carefully _neutral_. He suddenly wonders if Mayuri does, or doesn’t know the reference he’s accidentally making by wearing a red coat, and assembling the ingredients for a human body.

Hopefully, there won’t be any lost limbs _here_.

"This isn't an _Ikea_. The spell merely needs the ingredients to be in the _vicinity_. Now, please let me concentrate."

Mayuri starts chanting under his breath, in a language Kisuke can’t quite identify.

Nothing happens while he chants - no rising wind or flying sparks or even a feeling of growing power in the air. None of the usual hallmarks of powerful magic - not even some glowing glyphs in the air.

Kisuke is half-certain that something is going wrong.

Then his sensory input is gone, one brief second of total _nothingness_.

And then-

He blanks out, briefly, at the amount of sheer _information_.

Ghosts can’t really taste or feel or touch, and now he can smell the forest, and the stench of death and rot, taste blood and grave dirt in his mouth, feel the rough earth and dead grass underneath him, feel the icy _cold_ against his bare skin.

Kisuke’s body is shivering uncontrollably. Something soft and warm falls across his shoulders, and then someone is manhandling him into a too-long sweater, and then a long jacket.

It… doesn’t help with the cold, exactly, which feels like it’s coming from _inside_ him. And doesn’t help with the nausea that comes from trying to _stand_ , but at least there’s someone helping him stand.

His feet are still touching the bare earth, cracked and cold, with dead and hardened grass biting into his skin.

Kisuke opens his eyes to see Mayuri kneeling in front of him, trying to untangle his large scarf. He feels… oddly short. As a ghost, he’d grown up to be quite tall.

Grown up. _Of course._

He doesn’t remember how old he was when he died, exactly - hadn’t known his age at the time, anyway, but it was probably less than twelve.

“Ichigo-san, I don’t think the clothes we brought will be much help,” Mayuri calls out, moving forward to drape his massive scarf around Kisuke’s shoulders, and then wrapping it around him several times.

He still feels dizzy and nauseous and cold, and takes the opportunity to fall forwards, Mayuri automatically helping him stay standing.

Kisuke can hear Ichigo run around the bone pit to join them - the sound better, sharper than he’s used to.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Ichigo says somewhere behind him. “Did something go- wrong?”

“Not exactly. Your crush was about ten years old when he died, so the adult sized clothes are useless, and either he walks barefoot all the way to civilisation, or one of us has to carry him.”

Pressed so close to Mayuri, Kisuke feels… warm, just a little bit. And also, really, really tired. A hand absently pets his hair, and he hums in pleasure. He hasn’t been touched by another living person for so long.

Ichigo makes a strangled noise.

“Ten? Then-”

“Unless you’re into something I wasn’t aware of, I’m afraid your propositions have to wait till he’s visually legal.”

Oh. Well, that puts a damper on things for all of them, actually.

“Hopefully, Yoruichi-san and Tessai-san feel like adopting their friend, because I certainly don’t want to deal with that hassle, and I doubt _you_ can _afford_ to.”

“They will,” Kisuke says- or tries to. All that comes out is an exhausted sigh.

Another set of arms wrap around him, and then he’s suddenly being lifted up bridal-style.

“Well, we gotta get home first, I guess,” says a voice, sounding very far away. “Huh. Is it normal for someone to be so cold?”

“After a resurrection, yes. Also normal to fall asleep. Try not to jostle him too much, he needs the rest.”

Sleep. That sounds like a very good idea, which he’ll follow through with… immediately.

**Author's Note:**

> [Cywscross' UraIchi Server](https://discordapp.com/invite/ADFnKTZ#_=_)


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